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Two real women of the late 19th century experienced the horror of being labeled insane; their stories still resonate today in powerful Fringe presentations.

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Post-show: the big, happy team. 

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NELLIE/NELLIE combines whimsy and imagination with the true story of American journalist Nellie Bly and her 10 days in a mental institution.

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Getting into it!

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8 days until opening! Here is an original illustration from Ten Days in a Mad-House. Reserve tickets here. 

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Our set is loaded with surprises. If you look up there there are 600 origami swallows suspended in the sanctuary, an installation by Alison Dilworth called "Fall to Flight" and windmills by Dayton Castleman called "Tilting at Giants." Photos by Gregory Carafelli.

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Hisui (Jade Green) (Japan) - Black Long Sleeves 2, 2008     Drawings: Pentel Fude(Brush) Pen on Newspaper

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For a slightly more sprawling, sensitive, dark, absurd, and graceful telling of Bly's Ten Days in a Mad-House (with singing and dancing), come to our show.

Comedy Central’s Drunk History last night featured a hilarious take on Nellie Bly’s undercover reporting at an insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island, starring Laura Dern. For a slightly more, er, lucid account of that experience, be sure to check out our collection of Bly’s writings, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and Other Writings.

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What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured? I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 A.M. until 8 P.M. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane.

How the fierce Victorian journalist Nellie Bly posed as insane in her courageous exposé on 19th-century mental health care, which resulted in a $1M government increase in the budget for the care of the mentally ill.  (via explore-blog)

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Publicity photo of the American journalist Nellie Bly, who traveled around the world in seventy-two days in 1889/90.

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Festival guides raining down on Broad St. tonight. [A great gift.] Check out page 91. 

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This is our performance space. A remarkable document from 1901, "Dedication Souvenir of the Chambers-Wylie Memorial Presbyterian Church" details the history of the building now known as the Broad Street Ministry. Click on the photo to check it out.